Jacey Bedford's Journal

Audiobook read by Indira Varma

I read this when it first came out, but this is a revisit via Audible. First of all, the reading is excellent. Indira Varma's pacing is pretty well perfect, and Bill Nighy reads the footnotes. It all started when fledgeling witch, Tiffany Aching, allowed her feet to dance with the Wintersmith one fateful night, and captured his frozen elemental heart. From that moment the Wintersmith sought Tiffany, intending her to be his bride, but first he has to make himself into a man - using ingredients from a children's rhyme. In the meantime Tiffany continues to learn witchcraft from elder witches in Lancre, far away from her home territory (the Chalk). We meet Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg again, and Granny has a plan, though it's not obvious to Tiffany, who has to work out how to defeat the Wintersmith herself. The Feegles are everywhere, especially good when trying to turn Roland (Tiffany's 'friend') into a hero to rescue the Lady of Summer. Oh, yes, and there's a sentient cheese.

I love Diana Wynne Jones' storytelling. I picked this audiobook out at random and didn't realise it was one of the sequels to Howl's Moving Castle until Sophie and the fire demon Calcifer cropped up part way through. The main character is Charmain, a teen who is given the task of looking after Great Uncle William's house while he is away being cured of an illness by the elves. Uncle is a wizard and the house itself proves to have magic. It bends space and time. The corridors lead to many different places depending on the way Charmain turns. She's dismayed to find the house in complete disarray and hasn't a clue how to do the laundry or the washing up until Peter, Uncle William's new apprentice, arrives unexpectedly.  And there's trouble with kobolds, the local magical creatures. Really, all Charmain wants to do is to curl up with a good book, and since her mother forgot to pack Charmain's own books, she's quite happy to settle down with a spell book instead. When she gets an answer to her letter of application and is summoned to the Royal Mansion to help catalogue the king's library, the plot, about the king's missing gold, and the dodgy heir to the throne, kicks into gear. Kristin Atherton is the reader. Her narrative voice works well, but I don't particularly like the way she voices different characters, especially the children who are gratingly high pitched. Everyone speaks with an unidentifiable weird accent. I should probably have read this instead of listened. Four stars for the book, but only two for the performance.